Category: book reviews

  • Book Review: Wild Gypsy of Arbor Hill by Harvey Havel

    Wild Gypsy of Arbor Hill by Harvey Havel, 2019, Novella, 56,000 words

    Ebook for sale at Smashwords, Amazon, etc

    Recommended if you like: John Steinbeck, Leonard Gardner’s Fat City or William Kennedy

    Wild Gypsy of Arbor Hill is a realistic and unsentimental tale about love, longing and loss. It’s also an investigation into how financial insecurity can lead human relationships astray. It is expertly and harrowingly told by Albany author Harvey Havel who has written over a dozen novels on social themes.

    Charlie, a young & bright Caucasian male from a wealthy background attends an elite college and becomes smitten with a beautiful college girl named Sophia. At first, this girl ignores Charlie because she is out of his league, but Charlie persists and starts to win her over. Gradually Charlie realizes that Sophia is not quite the girl he thought; he has to face that he has deceived himself of what the girl could have ever offered to his future.

    From this point on, Charlie drops out of school, moves to Albany and finds himself struggling to make a living. At a friend’s suggestion, Charlie hires a pretty woman named Gypsy to clean his apartment and ends up forming a strange kind of attachment with her. Was it love? Or just a no-strings business relationship? Charlie recognizes that his fondness for Gypsy is not “normal” (or even healthy), and yet he does everything possible to make it blossom into something better. What kind of sacrifice ought he to make for this Gypsy woman? Was she even worth it? The more Charlie struggles to make this relationship work, the more ethical compromises he ends up making.

    Charlie is a flawed character of tragic dimensions — sympathetic but also infuriating. He seems genuinely concerned about the welfare of his friends; at the same time, Charlie has a sensuous and egotistical side that makes him unable to recognize the folly of his dreams. Perhaps Charlie was asking for the impossible!

    The novel is just as much about romantic illusions as economic illusions. Charlies is horrified to see how economics thwart romantic desires and how romantic fulfillment practically demands that he abandon his values. There’s a lot of sexual politics here, and the racial dynamics are also interesting. Havel is a Pakistani-American who has often written about the Muslim and African-American experience. Yet in this novel, the protagonist Charlie is white, and his best friend Cash is African-American and Gypsy is mixed-race. These things are not supposed to matter in our color-blind society, but by the end of the novel, it is clear that they do.

    This novella consists of 4 extended chapters, like acts in a play. The prose is simple and conversational and occasionally indignant. As bleak as the book was at times, I enjoyed getting to know the (flawed) characters and understanding Charlie’s motivations. The criminal elements in the latter part of the book were depicted in a realistic and almost banal way. The ending left me unsatisfied; I don’t know what kind of outcome would have felt “right,” here, but it was unclear to me whether Charlie had reformed or even changed his cynical world view.

    IN SUMMARY: Although not a pretty story, this expertly told tale explores how far a person can take his romantic and economic illusions without bringing ruin.

  • CATS ON FILM by Anne Billson (BOOK REVIEW)

    CATS ON FILM by Anne Billson (2017),  300  pages with illustrations. Author’s Website and Book Blog 

    Ebook: Amazon/Smashwords  . Price: $6.99

    Print Editions: Used copies are available, but with ebooks so cheap, why bother?

    Summary: Critical  look at movies with cats in them. The book is a real hoot to read — great insights and erudite movie  snark.

    Recommended if you like:  Quirky film references, anything catty, Disney movies, horror movies.

    CATS ON FILM gives a delightful and irreverent tour through world cinema from the standpoint of the cats who appear in it. This book grew out of a blog with the same name and  does not take itself too seriously. The book introduces various cat archetypes: CATAGONIST, HEROPUSS, CAPANION, CATZILLA, PUSILLA, CATRIFICE, CATGUFFIN and many more. To be honest, I am not particularly a cat lover (they’re ok, but…), and I had  hardly given a second thought about cats in film until picking up this book.  Probably the only movie I could think of with a cat theme would be CAT PEOPLE, and this book doesn’t talk about it at all except parenthetically.  What a shock it was to see discussions of so many movies with significant cat cameos.  THIRD MAN, NYMPHOMANIAC (!), Kieslowski’s BLUE, the GODFATHER, the original POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, the original FLY, LA DOLCE VITA, STRAW DOGS,  CLOCKWORK ORANGE (!) 1900, PROOF,  TRUE GRIT, DAY FOR NIGHT, AWFUL TRUTH, GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL, BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S (!), THE LEOPARD, and many, many more. My first reaction was, wow, there are cats in all these movies? Aside from HARRY AND TONTO, I had hardly noticed them!

    This is a logical and well-organized work — you can find a list of film discussed at the logical Table of Contents at the beginning (though it would have been better to have hyperlinks).   It can be fun to stumble upon the unexpected, and the book itself has  glorious color photographs and helpful labels like “Major Cat Movie.” Clearly Ms. Billson writes with an encyclopedic knowledge of cinema (she has also published several movie guides and writes about movies regularly for the “Guardian”). I found new insights about movies I thought I already knew (or at least, I thought I did!) I  now know about a lot of obscure films simply because of the odd fact that it has a cat in it.

    Because Billson already is an accomplished novelist (specifically in horror, mystery, vampires and other things), the book has unexpected bonuses. For the movie ALIEN she does a brilliant interior monologue of the same story from the cat’s point of view. (You remembered that there was a cat in that movie, right? I didn’t!) For the movie INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS, the book has a nice extended piece (The Moggyssey) teasing out the Homeric aspects to the plot. (By the way, I totally did not remember the movie having a cat in it!) For STUART LITTLE, she makes a tongue-in-cheek proposal to change the title of the movie to “Snowbell” (because the cat  character is more interesting and complex). Billson writes:

    Since Hollywood is largely run by dog people, cats are often relegated to secondary characters with bad attitudes, typified by animated propaganda such as LADY AND THE TRAMP, CINDERELLA, TOM AND JERRY or MERRY MELODIES shorts featuring Tweetie Pie and Sylvester, which try to brainwash children into thinking cats are evil or stupid, while dogs, rodents and birds are virtuous and should be given carte blanche to torment the felines.

    These creative takes are fun, clever and interesting.

    The book spends a lot of time on cats in genres like horror, James Bond and kid’s movies (which is to be expected). I particularly appreciated Billson’s speculation about the cats themselves as opposed to the role they are expected to play in the movie. She guesses when more than one cat is used for the same cat character in a movie (like THIRD MAN) and provides horrifying backstory about how cats were actually mistreated during the shooting of the film (as in ADVENTURES OF MILO AND OTIS).

    This clever book is based on a conceit that cats are more than story props. It’s an intriguing (though now obvious) idea. Fake soliloquys notwithstanding, I don’t get the impression that the book is trying to anthropomorphize the cat characters; it is just suggesting an alternate and yes, a more compassionate way to read movies. The book is a celebration of cats for what they naturally are in mainstream movies; At the same time, there’s more than enough  obscure Japanese, European, animation and old genre movies described here to make the ardent film buff happy.

    RELATED: I also recommend the illustrated book of fairy tales, A Cat may look at a King

  • 2018 Overlooked Ebook Gems for $1 or less on Smashwords — Ebook Week March 4-10



    (These sales are valid until midnight on Saturday March 10.  I’ll be adding more titles until that time.   If you have any free/almost free titles to recommend from SW, please list it in the comments. Thanks!]

    Smashwords may not yet be a household name yet to readers, but it serves as a great alternative to Amazon for ebooks.  For publishers and authors, Smashwords provides a gateway for authors to get their ebooks in  stores like Kobo, Apple, Overdrive (but alas, not Google Books). The main  drawback  of getting ebooks through Smashwords (which I actually consider to be an advantage) is that you have to manually put the DRM-free ebook/epub files on your ereader/tablet/phone of choice.  (My personal preference is to download EPUB files and then upload them to GOOGLE PLAY BOOKS  which is found on all android devices.  Alternatively, if you use iphone/ios, just download them (or email to youself) and then open in the iBooks app. Many titles here also provide .mobi files for sending to your Kindle (and often PDF).

    Another advantage of finding ebooks at Smashwords is that it’s much easier to offer discounts or sales or free ebooks than on Amazon.  This is especially true during Ebookweek on March 4-10 where a lot of ebooks  have  (temporary) reductions in price. Amazon will always have a significantly larger ebook catalog (duh!), but for this next week,  prices on ebooks by Smashwords authors are  likely to be significantly lower on Smashwords than on Amazon.com! 

    It can be a challenge to find  gems on Smashwords. You have book descriptions, but rarely reviews (although you can just go to the Amazon.com page or Goodreads to see what readers are saying about it).  A lot of Smashwords titles are shorter (like less than 20 pages — yikes!), the percentage of Adult-content titles is higher (ugh!), and the inventory of nonfiction titles can be pretty lame in comparison to what you see on Amazon. On the other hand, high quality fiction, memoirs, poetry, self-help and random academic titles are plentiful on Smashwords — certainly comparable to what you’d find on Amazon.com  To summarize:

    You can always find  great, cheap shit on Smashwords!

    The challenge is  that so few names are ones you’d recognize, and  most people don’t have time to go through individual titles. Fortunately, I have done the necessary legwork.   Below is  a list of several underappreciated and overlooked titles on Smashwords I found during the week which are free or very cheap.  Caveats: 1)I strongly prefer literary fiction to genre, I don’t like series, and I am  biased against certain genres. 2)I have only browsed book descriptions, author background and maybe read a sample chapter for these titles (i.e., I haven’t finished the books). But all sound very promising.  3)I’m overlooking titles with less than 20,000 words, and  4)I generally don’t care about how popular a title has been. The less popular, the more likely I am to mention it!

    Note: Prices listed will take into account the coupon/discount for this week only. After this week, these prices might no longer be valid (but I suspect most will be decent deals anyway).

    Literature & Literary Collections

    1.  (Free!) Abruptions: 3 Minute Stories to Awaken the Mind by Jack Matthews.  My Personville Press  publishes several titles by this great Ohio writer of philosophical stories  (see my book description and biographical sketch ).  Also check out the (Free) story sampler, Three Times Time . Also, I discounted another story collection Soldier Boys to $1 for this week only (which I think is one of his best works).
    2. (All Free!) Fiction and Poetry by  Paul Hina.  Hina is an incredible and prolific author who sells on both Amazon and Smashwords — except that all his titles on Amazon cost money, while on SW, they  are free! I read and loved the Other Shore: Two Stories of Love and Death which I would call highbrow romance in the vein of D.H. Lawrence or Somerset Maugham. It’s about a troubled son of a famous poet who returns to his hometown (and dying father) to deal with the family issues which he’d been avoiding.  In my review, I wrote: “the book captures romance and domestic drama with psychological nuance. Hina writes incredibly well and with tenderness about unique relationship situations and flawed but complex characters.”  Hina has several poetry collections — which I thumbed through. All interesting and expressive.  Grab these titles while you can (before Hina wises up and starts pricing them on SW for nonfree!).
    3. (Free!) Eye of a Needle: And Other Stories. Cornelia Fick (her website) . Here’s a collection of flash fiction/prose pieces about relationships and marriage by South African author (and nurse) Cornelia Fick which was her master’s thesis when she was studying creative writing at Rhodes U. She dabbles in poetry and experimental forms (the book description mentions Lydia Davis, Maxine Chernoff and Flannery O’Connor — and certainly the stories are ironic and observational). Watch out for (and enjoy) the nutty-sounding South African dialect!
    4. (Free!) Fine Print and Other Yarns by Dinesh Verma.  9 separate stories about 9 different Indians visiting Paris during the 1980s and 1990s. Verma works for the Indian government studied overseas in several countries (including Paris) and recently published a translation of stories by  the 19th century  Hindi author Premchand. The first story is a masterful tale about a disappointment experienced by an Indian art lover when given two days to visit Paris. This is an ebook version of a book which was positively reviewed in several Indian literary publications several years ago.
    5. (Always Free!). Speaking of Work: A Story of Love, Suspense and Paperclips. Literary Anthology, with contributions from Jonathan Ames, Lee Child,Jonathan Safran Foer,Aimee Mann, Gary Shteyngart, Joyce Carol Oates, and others.  (PS, it’s also a free download on the Xerox project site). The book seems to be a collaboration between the 92nd St Y and the  Xerox company, and based on my superficial impressions, the stories are based in New York  offices.
    6.  (Free!) Various Novels by Anne Billson  I raved about Billson’s  film books below, and special mention needs to be made of her novels (all of which are also free this week).  They  run the gamut from horror to satire to supernatural. From her own descriptions: SUCKERS (an upwardly mobile vampire novel), STIFF LIPS (a Notting Hill ghost story), THE EX (a supernatural detective story) and THE COMING THING (Rosemary’s Baby meets Bridget Jones) . As I mentioned above, I don’t read much horror, but I will note that Suckers, (her first novel)  was very well-received by readers and critics (one reviewer called it Bret Easton Ellis meets Anne Rice). Also, Stiff Lips has lots of great blurbs: “‘Sexy, sardonic and distinctly spooky… a tale to make you shiver – if you don’t die laughing first’ (Cosmopolitan).
    7. (Free/Set Your Own Price) Call me a Taxi  by Terry Ravenscroft.  Ravenscroft is a very accomplished writer for British TV comedies; he’s also been publishing a lot of novels in a similar vein.  This novel (which I’ve read two chapters of) is about an out-of-work man with the uncanny resemblance to  Oliver Hardy who runs into a strange neighborhood character who resembles Stan Laurel. It’s a promising start to what will surely be a series of comic misadventures mixed with occasional Mitty-esque returns to  glum reality.  Also,  the Razzamatazz Not Entirely PC Encylopedia is like a Devil’s Dictionary for modern times.   These two Ravenscroft works are likely to remain Set Your Own Price after this week, but about a third of his remaining ebooks are free for Ebook week: Stairlift to Heaven, Good Old George! and Dear Coca Cola  (humorous letters to corporations actually sent to companies).
    8. (99 cents) White Mythology: Two Novellas by W.D. Clarke. Clarke is an Ontario-based Pynchon-loving scholar who writes lots of smartypants fiction in the fine tradition of Joyce/Pynchon/Barth/Daniel Foster Wallace. Here are two novellas which showcase Clarke’s dazzling but always  readable style. The first  (longer) novella  describes in stream-of-consciousness manner  the crazy life and thoughts of a certain psychiatrist, Dr. Ed, as he goes through his day . The second novella captures a series of interrelated whimsical conversations and intrigue between various  American expats in Japan.  The first novella is more focused and introspective; the second is more rambling and silly (Those are my initial impressions at least).  Apparently, these two are part of a “Skinner Boxed” thematically-linked series of  novellas. (Apparently, many people  on Goodreads  have reviewed it, using phrases like  “clever,” “wild ride,” the “perfect book for these chaotic, stressful times”). (If you are wondering more about the author, check out this curmudgeonly blog post).
    9. (Free!) Tales by KindleLight by Kate Rigby.  Rigby is a highly accomplished British author who has about 10 titles. They are budget-priced, but generally high quality, quirky, unpredictable, experimental, always trying new subjects, full of British slang and attitude.   This story collection has some sexy and bittersweet stories — and one (“Sharing Sarah” about a strange love triangle where two best friends try to date the same girl simultaneously) made me laugh aloud. Two other longer works are free: Are you Dead? (described as “An edgy, contemporary tale about death and suicide and its effects on two families….Written in bite-sized sections in a colloquial style with elements of black humour and surrealism”) and Little Guide to Unhip (a fun but insubstantial series of rants about unhip things like “Umbrellas,” “early birds,”  Christmas, Badminton, Vicar of Dibley, etc.). Two other nonfree works deserve mention:  Fall of the Flamingo Circus — her first novel about a rebellious punk teenage girl during the 1970s which  lots of positive reviews when it came out in  on Amazon. Also Did You Whisper Back? an award winning  1991 novella about a psychological breakdown of  a girl seeking her twin sister.
    10. (new-Free!) New Old World by C.D. Stowell. Magnum opus 200,000 word semi-autographical novel about a 39 year Oregon photographer reflecting on her life as she travels to various places (and continents). Stowell herself is an award winning photographer who published a creative nonfiction book about an Indian reservation in the 1980s.  In her interview,  she mentions that it took 25 years to complete this novel and that she’s an admirer of Louise Erdrich,  David Mitchell and James Welch. The book itself includes some of her photos. One reviewer said  it had ” top-notch word-smithing, perfectly complimented by the author’s artful photography” and another called it “a brilliant, absorbing, and moving work of fiction.”

      Essays

    1. (Free!) Cats on Film by Anne Billson (and lots more by her).  Billson is  a prolific film critic, cat-lover  and novelist  who runs several special interest blogs and sometimes writes reviews for the Guardian. (Her blog is here). This book contains dozens of essays (and movie stills)  about  cats who have appeared in movies, and although the topic and style is humorous, it’s seriously  tries to understand what role they play in each movie, as well as comment on what they add (or don’t add) to the movie itself.  Each chapter looks at a different kind of cat movie role — the Catagonist, the Heropuss, Catrifice, Catguffin, Catscallion, Cataphor …. Oh, I’m dying here! This is one of those books you’d never thought you’d want to read, and yet I can imagine, spending a lot of time  on reading it(yes,  now, I’ll be watching some of the mentioned movies just to see the cats). This is a MUST BUY!
    2. (Free!) Multiple Titles of Movie Criticism by Anne Billson (see above). Unbelievably, all the Billson titles on SW are free this week. Check out especially the Billson Film Database (500,000 words, that’s about 5x the size of most movie reference guides). Also check out Spoilers Part 1 (1989-1995) and Spoilers Part 2 (1995-2001). (Several other collections are available for free this week).  These are solid, interesting books; watch out Kael and Ebert!
    3. (Always Free!) Dead Media Notebook by Bruce Sterling and Others. This is an encyclopedia about failed/obsolete technologies. Sci fi author and futurist Bruce Sterling  once made an offhanded remark that somebody should write about failed technologies, and this ebook is the result. A random hodgepodge of historical and technological curiosities.(Free!)

    Social Science and History

    1. ($2) Sacred History of Being by Thomas Yaeger. This book  of ancient scholarship by a scholar of ancient languages  intrigued me so much that I ended up buying the ebook at 75% off. The book argues that philosophy and the conception of the divine, the nature of reality and being came about well before the Greek philosophers; Yaeger examines historical evidence from cultures predating the Greeks to establish this thesis. Another fascinating and slightly more accessible book, Understanding Ancient Thought  ($1 for this week only) tries to get inside the mind of ancient humans from different cultures in Greece, Mesopotamia, Assyria, Mexico and Asia. You can view the Table of Contents for this book on Yaeger’s blog.
    2. (Free!) Be a Hater: A Polemic on the Hater Mindset by Wes Parham. This erudite but unclassifiable book is a spirited and lively defense of contrarianism in contemporary society.  The book engages the reader with pop culture references (i.e., Taylor Swift’s “Haters gonna hate”), first person narratives, humor and lots of discussions of recent books on psychology and cognition. Interestingly, the book talks very little about politics; Parham has an MBA and PhD in organizational leadership and works in education.

    Science and Medicine

    1. (Free!) Snake Oil is Alive and Well by Morton E. Tavel MD.  Tavel is a doctor, professor, medical researcher and grandfather with a distinguished  history in the medical field. This book is an introduction to how to evaluate medical claims and  recognize medical quackery before it  bites you in the butt. The companion book, Health Tips, Myths and Tricks,  contains 2-3 page chapters about ways to stay healthy and fit (similar to Dr. Weil’s books) and full of practical advice. The topics are probably familiar: Eating breakfast, health benefits of green tea, whether you should eat less red meat, that sort of thing. Overall, good and informative, with the caveats that the book research might be out of date (it was published in 2015), the topics are not covered in great depth, and unfortunately, there are some major formatting errors in the book (like, there are a few chapter titles minus chapters — alas, they appear OK  later in the book!). But the content is all there and readable.

    Memoir/Biography

    1. (Free!)25 Years in the Rearview Mirror: 52 Authors Look Back. Edited by Stacy Juba.  (Free also on Amazon). Juba explains that she used to write articles  for her publications  with a “25 (or 50) years ago today” theme. Then she thought, wouldn’t it be interesting to ask my writing friends what they were doing exactly 25 years ago? This readable anthology is the result. Juba was going to write a mystery  about a person who writes  these “25 years ago today” articles and stumbles upon an unsolved murder mystery. (Ah, published only on Amazon but very well reviewed). Juba has published several chicklist/YA fiction that are somewhat light-hearted and well-reviewed on Amazon
    2. (Free!)Footnote to a Dream by Benny Michel. This is an autobiography of a well-known South African musician, his rise during the “Big Band” era, his affliction with polio and living as a Jew in the early days of Johannesburg’s history. I picked this title less for its literary qualities than the fact that I just found the subject matter interesting in and of itself. (BTW, I had problems opening the EPUB file, but managed to send the .mobi file to my kindle app without problem).
    3. (Free!)An Incredible Talent for Existing by Pamela Jane. Jane is the author of 30 books (mostly children’s books). Here is a memoir for adults about going from the idyllic childhood of the 50s to the turbulent sixties and beyond. I had time only to flip through the chapters, but she spends a lot of time on childhood (and her encounters with various children’s literary works) and college. Highly readable, literate and thoughtful, full of photographs and cultural details, this is a book I probably would never go out of my way to buy, but I think that it will be easy to fall into this memoir (like a character from a children’s book might fall into some inner fantasy land).  BTW, I noticed a nice blogpost by the author about outstanding books for memoir writers.

    I probably wouldn’t be able to recommend any titles in the genres below, but if you have something to recommend (or other genres), feel free to indicate.

    Sci Fi/Fantasy

    1. (2.99 — not free! )  Onset, Reset, Mindset by E.L. Russell. First, this ebook (actually a trilogy in one volume) is a medical/scientific thriller about a young female athlete (and medical student) who suffers a severe injury, and through genetic reprogramming becomes more than human with special powers. I mention it here because I ran  into Mr. Russell at a local writers’ event. Russell has a PHD in Math, has worked in technology research all his life and now cowrites these technical thrillers with his wife. I found the man and the background behind his sci fi novels to be fascinating and thought-provoking.  I don’t read much sci fi, and I haven’t read this one yet — though I definitely plan to.  The author has lots of ebooks on Smashwords — and some of his shorter works are free, and if I recall, the ebooks contain instructions about how to get other free ebooks by him.

    Finally,  remember that these are titles which caught my eye.  Surely I’ve overlooking a lot.  If you have one or titles to recommend from Smashwords, list it below (links are ok, but try not to mention more than 2 titles, especially if you are mentioning your own titles. I’ll approve your comments fairly quickly).

    Special Note for SW Authors Listed Here:  If you’d like to provide a custom SW coupon code for a discounted price valid after this week, send me an email ( idiotprogrammer AT fastmailbox.net ). I’d be more than happy to help you sell your stuff!

    Finally, as I mentioned above, I run Personville Press. SW currently has three Jack Matthews titles, but I should have 3 more Matthews titles  by Matthews in a month or so. A fourth volume (a short story collection) will be released at the end of 2018. I keep a page of Smashwords coupon codes for Jack Matthews  which I regularly update, so check there for the latest deals.  Incidentally, I’ll be publishing my first fiction title (a short story collection) this summer. It will be listed on the Personville Press page at Smashwords — when it’s ready.

  • Life Lessons In Leadership (Book Review)

    Title:   Life Lessons in Leadership: The Way of the Wallaby: For Leaders Ages 8 to 88

    Author:  Ann McMullan, Michael Barrett, Lisa Breshears (Design)

    Publisher:  Createspace

    Genre: Nonfiction, Hybrid Genre. 

    ISBN:  978-0325053011

    Publishing Date: November 2016

    Where to Buy:  Author’s Web Site. Amazon.com, BN

    Price: $14.95 for print book (no ebook is available)

    Summary: light-hearted way to introduce management concepts

    This clever and beautifully illustrated book tries to do the impossible: discuss the challenges of managing people in such elementary terms that even a kid could understand it. It’s a captivating collaboration by an educational consultant, a children’s author and a talented artist. The book is brief — it’s less than 20 pages — but it presents important insights about leadership that even the most book-averse could absorb without too much pain. I see the book as accomplishing three things. First, it facilitates discussion by providing silly (and imaginary) examples of well-run and dysfunctional organizations. Second it contains whimsical verse of clueless animal bosses (complete with cute drawings) which directly relate to the concepts described on the page preceding it. Third, it emphasizes the importance of soft management skills (like listening, giving credit and responding to conflict from a loving perspective). The whole book has a “maternal vibe” to it, and that is somewhat unusual for a book on management; this certainly is appropriate in some contexts (such as education and nonprofits), but in other business contexts, it may seem too touchy-feely and not goal-oriented enough. Still, the books makes a few points quickly and makes them well (and entertainingly). The book is a great ice-breaker for managers who are seeking a light-hearted way to introduce management concepts to staff.

  • Making Sense of Algebra (Book Review)

    making-sense-algebraTitle:  Making Sense of Algebra: Developing Students’ Mathematical Habits of Mind

    Author:  E. Paul Goldenberg, EDC, Inc., June Mark, EDC, Inc., Jane M. Kang, EDC, Inc., Mary Fries, EDC, Inc., Cynthia J. Carter, The Rashi School, Tracy Cordner, EDC, Inc.

    Publisher: Heinemann,  (Download Sample Chapter)

    ISBN:  978-0325053011

    Publishing Date: April 2015

    Where to Buy: Publisher’s Web Site. Amazon.com, BN

    Price: $22.50 for print book (no ebook is available)

    Summary: Excellent CC-oriented guide for getting students to adopt the “algebraic” habit of mind with a particularly strong chapter on using puzzles in the classroom.

    I’m a first year middle school math teacher  trying to broaden my pedagogical understanding of the subject. I have come across many impressive math  education books by  Jo Boaler, Cathy Seeley, Marilyn Burns and  John A. Van de Walle. I’ve also picked a few recent titles which are “Common Core” aware (such as Cathy Humphreys’ Making Number Talks Matter, Building Powerful Numeracy for Middle and High School Students by Pamela Weber Harris and finally Making Sense of Algebra by  E. Paul Goldenberg and others). All are excellent in their own way. “Making Sense of Algebra” selects a small number of topics and covers them in depth; the problems and puzzles it presents  would fit perfectly well in high school algebra as well as a class for advanced middle school students. At the same time, the book covers some fundamental topics which properly should be taught at the middle school level (or  earlier).

    Making Sense of Algebra  does not contain lesson plans or activity worksheets. While the book alludes frequently to CC math standards, it doesn’t try to review these standards or at least provide a reference to them (that might have helped). Although the book has multiple names in the byline,  it has a good logical flow and certainly doesn’t read like an education textbook (it’s much better!)  With an important  exception noted below, the book doesn’t really cover geometry, nor does it refer to trigonometry or calculus in any in-depth way. Still, the general principles of solving math problems elucidated here do apply to all kinds of higher math.

    Rather than trying to plan a class or curriculum, the book covers the development of mathematical habits of mind.

    The first chapter introduces the concept of “algebraic habits of mind” and how it relates to the Common Core’s Standards for mathematical practice. Chapter 2 discusses problems in contemporary math education and the special challenges facing certain kinds of struggling learners. Chapter 3 covers how puzzles can be used in class to promote algebraic habits of mind. Chapter 4 talks about how  teachers can help students to  investigate problems and formulate solutions. Chapter 5 talks about the importance of revising certain mental models commonly used in lower grades to illustrate multiplication and negative numbers. It shows why  using number lines to illustrate addition and subtraction obviate the need to teach certain rote rules (like “multiplying two negatives cancels each other out”) and that using the metaphor of area  to illustrate multiplication lays the groundwork for explaining how to multiply polynomials.The last chapter covers how a teacher can monitor and tighten  language used in the classroom to best facilitate learning. It also provides insights into how a teacher can overcome a student’s reluctance to  talk in math class.

    I found the chapter on puzzles to be the most remarkable and helpful to me as a teacher. It can be a challenge though to use them in class. Some  puzzles that are too hard (or too dependent on non-mathematical skills) can end up segregating the class into those willing to try hard puzzles and those who don’t even bother. For example, I — like many other math teachers — introduced the infamous Cheryl’s birthday math problem to  my middle school students. My top students found it challenging but  perplexing while a good  chunk of my students didn’t even try (despite some pre-teaching about how to systematically record guesses, etc).  The puzzle chapter makes a case about the pedagogical value of having students experience frustration and  try a variety of approaches to solve something. It covers lots of different puzzle types which are more specifically about math (unlike the Cheryl’s birthday problem),  more inviting to students and apt to lead  students down algebraic paths. The book discusses the  learning opportunities of various puzzle types and the advantage of using puzzle types which are easy for a teacher (or student) to  create on their own. The idea of students creating math puzzles was  intriguing  to me, but it makes perfect sense; it helps students with  “posing interesting problems” which is another  habit of mind which  the book believes to be important.

    The book suggests that puzzles be used as  “stand-alone investigations” rather than introducing them during units when a specific topic is studied. The book defends this practice by saying: “Life’s real problems arrive at any time, not just when you are conveniently studying how to solve them. We investigate when we don’t know how to solve a problem. We must not start out by thinking, ‘Oh, I’m supposed to factor because that’s what we’re studying now.’”  The book argues that cultivation of  “stamina” is important when when trying to solve math problems and that  “problems which are too short or too scaffolded don’t increase students’ investigation skills or stamina.” For this reason, it’s helpful to give students problems with a “low threshold, high ceiling” (translation: problems which are easy to play with, but might involve concepts beyond their zone of proximal development).

    The book offers several strategies for helping to cultivate student’s investigative skills. First, it emphasizes the importance of gaining experience about the problem itself before trying to formalize a solution. This can involve plugging in a few haphazard numbers or  using experimental aids.   Second, the teacher can give “tail-less” or “headless” problems whereby students are given a set of facts without an actual question being asked and must  write a list of assumptions implied by this set of facts (or conversely,  the student is given a problem and asked to speculate about what data is needed to solve it). What a good idea! Often  failing to recognize the implications of a mathematical statement can prevent the student from reaching a solution. Third, presenting students with redundant quantitative  information  in a problem can make it easier for  struggling students to make connections. Fourth, providing additional questions (i.e., “have you found ALL  the solutions?”) can  be a challenging and interesting way to extend the assignment for advanced students.

    While the first half of the book did a great job of explaining how students think mathematically and how to make them think more productively, I was beginning to think that the book offered little real insight about how to run a math class and organize students effectively. Some questions spring to mind: 1)how do you do assessments of puzzle solving or habits of mind? 2)what kinds of topics lend themselves better to small group activities and what kinds require more teacher-prodding? 3)How do you  integrate the need to teach habits of mind with the need to teach mandated objectives?

    The second half of the book  tackles these kinds of questions. The investigations chapter ends with a fairly good discussion of how to structure whole class discussions of investigations after students have collaborated on clarifying examples. The subject of the last chapter “Thinking Out Loud” is about the best ways how  to teach students  to discuss mathematical ideas in the classroom. The book stresses the importance of encouraging students to “think first, then talk,” but argues that discussions are a way to “vary the texture of the class.” I recently finished Cathy Humphreys Making Number Talks Matter and feel that this book provides a exhaustive treatment of the value of a more communicative approach to math and how to implement it. The  chapter in Thinking Algebraically covers some of the same ground (without as many examples), but it makes several important new points. First, the teacher should encourage and model precision in speech. For example, when discussing a cube, using the word “side” invites misunderstanding; if you use “vertices,” “edges”, “faces”, that reduces the possibility of confusion. (Of course, it is impossible for students to avoid using “sloppy” language, but it is possible to make students aware of the need for precision). It’s important to choose topics which are actually discussable and to give the student enough time to formulate an answer (the book says “counting to 20 in your head….is not unreasonable”).

    The book analyzes in great detail the various reasons why students prefer not to talk in a math class. Perhaps the question seems too trivial, or the student may lack confidence in their own math skills to express their ideas. It offers ways that teachers can encourage productive discussions. For example, instead of saying “close” or “you are getting warmer,” the teacher can respond to a wrong answer with supportive    statements like “the answer needs to be even” or “were you thinking that 7×7= 49?” The book offers ways for the teacher to make the student feel empowered in the classroom and links the ability to solve puzzles appropriate to their level as a confidence-builder. One  recommended technique  is to present written fictional  “math dialogues” about a math situation, and have students read along and critique the approaches of the fictional students. Although these dialogues may sound corny, “the student reading it can imagine — even without knowing this is fiction — how characters who are never told what to do or how to do it can believe and demonstrate that they can figure out mathematical ideas for themselves using what they already know. This invests mathematical authority in these characters, repeatedly giving the message that mathematical knowledge can be built logically rather than from some external source.”

    This is a brilliant insight and a great way to model student conversations  and habits of mind. The book provides one extended example of a fictional dialogue and references to other books which contain additional dialogues.  (I would have liked the book to have a second example, but this is fine).

    My only complaint is that I wish the book had covered how technology and videogames can be incorporated in class. In Texas, all middle schoolers are expected to follow self-guided online lessons and videogames called Think Through Math. I have recently been wowwed by the Dragonbox Algebra 12+ mobile app/game (described in detail in Greg Toppo’s book The Game Believes in You). For various organizational and budgetary reasons, math departments are having to use these kinds of courses and modules, and  teachers could benefit from guidance about whether these methods can be academically rigorous and easily integrated into the classroom. I suspect that the book’s authors would  be skeptical of algebra via videogames. At the same time, students have lots of access to math resources via the web; are these “cheats” pedagogically useful? Or should the teacher make some attempt to discourage students from finding the answer online so they may arrive at their own insights?

    OVERALL this compact book is a pretty dense read, but full of insights  and really fun to read. (I enjoyed trying out many of the puzzles myself).   This book  showed an awareness of existing scholarship and provided an ample bibliography, making it invaluable for the novice teacher (though the experienced math teacher will find useful insights here as well). I fear that the book will be known mainly for exploring the use of puzzles in the classroom. But the book covers a lot more ground than that.

  • Education Book Reviews

    Over the past few months I have been pursuing  a teacher’s public school certification for Texas. One important step in that endeavor has been reading the latest books on education policy, curriculum and classroom management. I have been collecting lots of books and learning new things. I haven’t begun to finish these books, but I have skimmed a lot and learned a lot of important things.

    Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools. By Diane Ravitch . Eye-opening analysis of education reform by one of America’s education experts. Ravitch makes the case that a test-centered approach to teaching and learning has done significant harm to students. Significantly Ravitch pins much of the blame on charter schools and the push by foundations (like Gates and others) to privatize learning. One of the most eye-opening facts was how performance of US students on NAEP (a fairly reliable test used for comparing education progress)has been steadily rising, belying the idea that public schools are “failing” the kids. At heart Ravitch believes that public schools are doing as good a job as they can under the circumstances and don’t need private entrepreneurship to upend the system. Highly recommended.
    Teach Like a Champion. Doug Lemov . This is a very impressive set of practices and guidelines for ensuring that learning actually takes place inside the classroom and that the classroom is managed properly. This is a very clever book and probably most new and experienced teachers could learn a thing or two from it. This helpful book also includes video excerpts on the enclosed DVD to illustrate the principles when put in practice. To my delight, I later learned that Lemov did some teacher training at HISD, and so this book is influencing schools already.
    Lies My Teacher Told Me. James W. Loewen . This very famous and respected critique of high school history classes shows the danger of an approach to social studies which skims the surface of historical events. Lowen highlights some howlers which are nonetheless taught in class (and most of which I remember learning about). Although I applaud the aim of this book, in fact I think the process of producing and approving textbooks is what ensures its bland inoffensiveness. I’m guessing that a lot of these misperceptions are quickly dispelled in college history classes, so I have to wonder what Loewen wants here. Does he want history teachers to focus on less material in more depth. Or more class time in general? Also, I’m sure it would be ideal to have high school teachers who know some of these historical old wives’ tales. I guess the book’s reputation (and catchy title) ensures that all history teachers will have to read it and tailor their lessons accordingly.
    Brain Gain. By Marc Prensky .
    Power of Mindful Learning. By Ellen Langer .
    Essential 55. By Ron Clark.
    Case Against Homework by Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish. (Website ).This book argues that schools harm children and family life by assigning too much homework. Most of the book consists of anecdotal evidence, quotes by psychology professors and harried parents. I’m sure there is a grain of truth here, but I felt that the case wasn’t made fairly. For example, are some kinds of homework worse than others? What about long term project work rather than daily assignments? The book successfully conveys the fact that huge amounts of homework interferes with family life and participation in extracurriculars. That is certainly important. One Amazon commenter (and school administrator) mentioned that teachers often assign too much homework because they didn’t have time to finish their lesson in class (or students didn’t have the interest to do their work in class). Having too much homework might be a symptom of a dysfunctional classroom than a teacher with unreasonable expectations. Interesting to read, but I wish it went into more detail about what kinds of homework actually are worthwhile (other than throwaway advice for students to avoid doing more than 5 math problems a night).

    Below are books I have been accumulating and haven’t read enough of to formulate an opinion about:

    • Teach like your hair is on fire. by Rafe Esquith.
    • Power of Poems by Margriet Ruurs.
    • Five Minds for the Future by Howard Gardner.
    • Activating the Desire to Learn. By Bob Sullo.
    • Art of Thinking by Vincent Ryan Ruggiero.
    • Strategies that work. By Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis.
    • Myth of Laziness. By Mel Levine, MD
    • Dramatic Literacy: Using Drama and Literature to Teach Middle-Level Content.  By J. Lea Smith & J Daniel Herring.
    • Engaging Minds: Motivating & Learning in America’s Schools by David A. Goslin.
    • Anti-Education Era by James Paul Gee.
    • Unschooled Mind: How Children Learn and how schools should teach.  by Howard Gardener.
    • Live Wires: Neuro-Parenting to Ignite your teen’s brain. By Judith Widener Muir MD
    • Dramatic Literacy: Using Drama and Literature to Teach Middle-Level Content by J. Lea Smith & J. Daniel Herring.

  • Book Review: Houston Dining Index by Mike Riccetti

    Houston Dining Index by Mike Riccetti (2013), Tempus Fugit Press.180 pages.(Author Website)

    Ebook Edition: $3.99  (Buy at Amazon, and  BN)

    Summary: great restaurant review book with lots of useful lists (such as restaurants near Metro Rail stops), but it is somewhat  difficult to browse by neighborhood or region.

    The author is a Houston native who has been reviewing Houston restaurants for a long time.  He and I went to high school in Houston together, and I have fond memories about his taking classmates to an obscure and crazy Asian jazz restaurant where he ordered all kinds of crazy and delicious things for the table. Mike’s enthusiasism for food and fine dining is evident in his book which collects lots of information about Houston’s amazing restaurant scene. In addition to writing regular restaurant reviews for the Examiner and Houston Press, Riccetti has already written one Houston culinary guide. This volume  updates and improves upon the previous one.

    The book seems to be targeted to the out-of-town traveller. He gives three dollar figures under price: average dinner cost (including 20% tip), entrée price range and average entrée price. Also, he begins by talking about restaurants in areas frequented by out-of-towners (the airports,  downtown), I have looked up about 30 restaurants I know very well and found that his reviews are succinct, fair but not overly positive and  good at capturing what is unique and interesting about the restaurant in question.  Most of the listings include its neighborhood and/or its culinary type, but this is not always done consistently.

    The  excellent introduction gives an overview about Houston restaurants and trends.  This book has some incredible “extras”: a listing of local pubs and microbreweries, a review/list of Bistros (I didn’t know Houston had so many!)  a review/list of restaurants in hotels,  a listing of restaurant without walking distance of the Metrorail (! — this will be even more useful after Metrorail is expanded even further in 2014). There is a section for “restaurant rows” (small pedestrian-friendly areas full of restaurants). Perhaps the oddest section was “Seen on TV” (restaurants which were reviewed or featured on various food shows).

    I like the fact that this book covers a lot of budget restaurants and that it contains a lot of lists (Late Night, Sunday Brunch, Uniquely Houston Restaurants). Its coverage of Vietnamese restaurants was  particularly good.  But it can be hard to browse the book by location. The book highlights certain areas (e.g., “West Houston — Energy Corridor and Katy”) but for the most part you have to browse by culinary type and then look at individual listings to see where they are located. Also, there was not a special section for Galleria (where I live, a common destination for visitors). There is not an index  but a section for “Location” near the end (which is useful but easy to overlook). It would have been even more  helpful for the Location section to actually link to the place in the book where the restaurant was  reviewed.  As a practical matter, you will have to use the ebook search feature to find a specific restaurant.  One tip I have is creating ebook bookmarks for the most useful sections (which I found to be “Metrorail”, “restaurant rows,” and “Locations” ) so you can access them later  more easily.

    This raises question about whether restaurant books still matter in an age of Yelp and B-4-u-eat. Although raw feedback from  review  websites are great, they can overwhelm you with extraneous information  In contrast, restaurant guidebooks like this are more practical and concise and give you a better overview of what’s here. Houston has some incredible restaurants, and books like this help the visitor and  longtime residents to discover new and wonderful places.

    ********************************************************************

    Disclaimer: Mike and I were high school classmates. More on Disclaimers and Reviewing

  • Brief Book Reviews 3

    Here’s my next batch of capsule book reviews.  Now that I’ve figured an easier way to lay things out, I hope to post book reviews more frequently. Next batch will have more indie ebooks, I promise! Here’s an index to my other book reviews.

    DeadZone Stephen King

    The Dead Zone by Stephen King. After viewing the sci fi TV series based on the novel, I decided to read the original source material. Many original elements from the TV show are here (albeit in smaller form). The book did a good job of bringing the plot to a personal level; the book called more attention to the struggle between John Smith and his parents. Because the book used fewer supernatural effects, it was actually more plausible and inward-looking. At the same time, the heavy emphasis on plot and dialogue made this story ready for TV. Aside from the protagonists, none of the characters seemed compelling or seemed to have complex struggles. This book was a train wreck, and even though I’m not a fan of Stephen King’s works in general, I feel sure he must have done better than this later on. (I thought Misery was brilliant though overdone and needlessly sadistic). The premise here was great — and so was the research about brain function, but I don’t think the plot or the characters rose above cliche. As a book, it didn’t work; however, some of the pop culture details from the 1970s were fun enough to make the book occasionally tolerable.

    The Failure by James Greer. Great comic novel about an ill-fated attempt to rob a Korean check-cashing store and one brother’s attempt to make a bundle off some Internet scam. The plot is outrageous, and full of strange characters and comic diversions and narrator long-windedness. The “Korean check-cashing fiasco” is announced to be a failure from the start, but it was delightful to hear it in excruciating detail. The book consists of many short chapters with funky titles (“Marcus, Guy’s Brother, Contemplates what might have been, standing at the window of his office in Cambridge, the same day as the Korean Check-Cashing Fiasco”) and lots of hilarious asides (See the one in Chapter 47 about the “plight of the underappreciated writer.”). The book is about the vagaries of wealth and success and how the Internet-driven economy only makes everything more unpredictable. It’s just as hard to know whether the check-cashing scheme has any chance of success as the latest Internnet technology which no one quite understands. As zany as it seems to pair a California novel with Irish narrator Tadhg Hynes, the audio book published by Iambik Press works because Hynes easily can adopt a tone of derision, pettiness and cynicism. Hands down, the audiobook was one of the funniest things I’d heard — it ranks up with Rob McQuay’s narration of Bill Bryson’s “Walk in the Woods.” Highly Recommended. (Also: Here’s a revealing interview between Miette Elm and the author.)

    Cooler, Smarter: Practical Steps for Low-Carbon Living by the Union of Concerned Scientists . This nonfiction reference guide provides good consumer information about how to reduce your carbon footprint. Out of the 300 page book, 30 pages are end notes, 20 pages are resources and author bios (!?), 50 pages are an introduction to climate change (unneeded by now, I think). That leaves about 120-150 pages of good stuff about home heating, food production transportation, electronics, and bringing green living to the workplace. I thought the food section had good and new information, and the home heating/utility contained useful information for home-owners. I would have liked to see more discussion about the value of organic products and more formulas for calculating footprint; for example, how do you estimate the carbon footprint of an ipad produced overseas? How do you estimate the carbon footprint of bus travel? How do you convert between different measuring units and scales? How does recycling lower your carbon footprint (if at all)? The book is the best on the market, but there really needs to be a better and more comprehensive guide on the subject. Related: I highly recommend No Impact Man (the book) by Colin Beavan and Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard.


    Yu Hua brothers

    Brothers by Yu Hua. This remarkable picaresque and satirical novel about the rags-to-riches tale of two Chinese brothers against the backdrop of modernization has a lot going for it. An engaging style, two well-drawn out characteristics, and a lot of political and social subtexts. It brims with scatological humor and lots of episodes and hilarious dialogue. I listened to the audiobook and confess that parts were electrifying — either sad or humorous or both. Yu Hua’s satire is so caustic that one is almost shocked to find something so daring from China. (Its far-flung reach is reminiscient of Journey to the West). One critic described it as Rabelais Meets Horatio Alger, and I think that’s fair. The central character is Baldy Li, an aggressive, blunt boy whose effrontery translates into being a good businessman. His older brother Song Fanping is more modest and enlightened; at the same time he is crippled and even emasculated by his willingness to follow the traditional paths to success. The novel is more about Baldy Li’s outrageous behavior and how it helps him to succeed. I liked Book 1 (which describes how the two brothers were orphaned as a result of the Cultural Revolution and how they both fall in love with the same girl). As the book goes on and focuses more on Baldy Li’s business success, the plot becomes more ridiculous — whores and incurable diseases and opulent living. I read the book as Chinese society’s naive introduction to business success. The rags-to-riches fairy tale; is often unrealistic and maudlin. Many characters aren’t quite sure how you make money in a privatized system, and only Baldy Li’s shameless pursuit of wealth seems to be working. My favorite moment comes when Baldy Li seeks investors for his new business. Several people buy shares on the basis of Baldy Li’s bluster. But when it appears that Baldy Li may not be bringing a return on their investments, suddenly these ordinary Chinese realize that capitalism itself might be a scam. This novel was ostensibly written for laughs — and it’s probably unrealistic to hold it up to a standard of realism; at the same time, I suspect that the larger-than-life character of Baldy Li doesn’t seem plausible to most readers; more people probably identify with this older brother who would be in the grips of poverty were he not connected to Baldy Li. The book ultimately takes things to ridiculous heights — to the point where I no longer cared about the outcome. I don’t particularly like this novel as a whole, but it did reveal the variety of attitudes (both naive and sophisticated) that oridinary Chinese had towards privatization and dreams of prosperity. Baldy Li is really a horrible person, but the book never really hints that Baldy Li’s life may not be the paradise it seems. And Baldy Li’s foil (his older brother) is too impotent and bland to stand out as a credible alternative. Everyone loves a funny and boorish literary character, but I have to wonder if the author loves Baldy Li too much. The audio narrator, Louis Changchien, does an outstanding job at bringing the book to life. It’s just too bad that the novel becomes a ridiculous concoction.

    PuddnHeadWilson

    Puddnhead Wilson by Mark Twain. This funny postbellum novel about a nitwit and a wealthy white man who learns unexpectedly that he was actually born black. I liked the early chapters , but as the plot became complex and the Negro dialect became thicker, it became harder to follow. The story proceeds haphazardly; it almost seemed thrown together. Twain’s style and humor is unmistakable, but I would have preferred a more focused novel.

    1000 Recordings You Must Hear before you Die by Tom Moon. At first glance, this nonfiction book seems to be a typical reference guide of best albums. But the book contains lots of unusual recommendations, lots of connections between musicians in different genres. Reading this book is pure delight. Succinct, full of collector’s notes and recommended recordings and great layout for easy browsing. Every time I flip open the book, I learn some new thing both about the artist and the context in which the album was released. Even the indices are useful (they even have a “mood index” where you can find music in categories like “Music to inspire Reflection” and “Cardio Workout” and “Headphone Journey.”) Unlike Dimery’s book (which actually aims to be a boring reference guide), Moon’s book feels more personal and less inclined to list historically important albums. Unfortunately some albums listed here are not easy to find, and Moon — anticipating this — does a good job of describing what you’re missing. You can download a PDF listing all the recordings, and the website/blog for the book has lots of related commentary. Such a reference guide will by definition go out of date quickly, but it still will be a delight to peruse long after. Highly Recommended (though avoid the ebook edition — which isn’t as browsable or as well laid out).

    1001 Albums You must hear before you die by Robert Dimery can easily be confused with Moon’s classic, but they are like night and day. Dimery’s book tries to be a chronological reference book, and even though the choice of albums are predictable and not particularly interesting, it is still useful to have this reference guide as a counterweight to Moon. This is the kind of book you’d want to give to your son or daughter to give them a conventional introduction to pop music from previous decades, but it won’t open your eyes to much. This sounds like I’m knocking this book, and in a way I am. But as long as you don’t expect cutting edge recommendations here and simply a timeline of famous albums, you’ll be fine. Still, read Moon’s book before this one.

    Rock Snob’s Dictionary by David Kamp and Steven Daly . This slim mock-reference book sounds fairly easy to write, but I wanted to mention how well the authors manage through the format of a glossary to discuss many overlooked musical styles and persons. It explains a lot of cultural terms which even well-informed listeners might miss. Also, some of the glossary items are satirical. Example: “Plangent” is a “standby rock-crit adjective used to lend a magical aura to any nonaggressive guitar-based music (even though the word’s primary meaning is”loud and resounding. Perhaps this guide might merely amuse those knowledgeable about music, but I found it very informative as well. Highly recommended.

    Christgau’s Consumer Guide: Albums of the ’90s . (also Christgau’s Record Guide: The ’80s and Rock Albums Of The 70s: A Critical Guide) By Robert Christgau. Christgau has been reviewing albums for a long time and has perfected a manner of writing of writing capsule reviews of most of the major musicians. Many of Christgau’s reviews seem peremptory or missing the point of the music; on the other hand, Christgau does seem to get British punk and rap/hip-hop and is generally good at identifying duds. Despite the fact that I disagree with a lot of Christgau’s reviews (he overlooks or belittles some gems), often his snap judgments can give you a sense of where to place individual albums. I’m happy to report 2 things. First, Christgau wrote a great introduction to his 90s edition which is worth reading for its own sake. Second, reviews from all of Christgau’s books (and even ones published later) are easily accessed from Christgau’s website. His essays are a lot more sympathetic and consumer-oriented. Finally, although Christgau covered the 90s pretty well (despite being generally unsympathetic to alternative music), I’ve noticed how many titles never get reviewed by Christgau. We have to be grateful that Christgau tried to review as much as he can, but the 2000s, the music world had become too large and complex even for Christau.

    Hitler’s Last Secretary: A Firsthand Account of Life with Hitler . By Traudl Junge. This autobiographical account of Hitler’s final days became the basis for the magnificant German film “Der Untergang” (aka “Downfall.” ) This book gives even greater detail, starting with the lavish parties Eva Braun used to throw in various summer houses. Junge writes long after the fact, so she occasionally throws in postscripts about what happened to some of the major and minor actors. Generally though, she writes through the naive eyes and ears of her younger naive self, describing everyone’s foibles and predelictions in this typical awestruck way. This of course is a stylistic conceit, because Junge has spent the rest of her life trying to atone for her blindness, but it was important to convey without a guilty tone both logistics and the smaller events that intruded on German politics and war-planning. Probably most fascinating about the book is the afterward by Melissa Muller which describes her life post-Hitler. (For about 10 years she labored under the cloud of her past, and later, she became well known as a liberal-minded editor and publisher). She describes horrifying events (such as the various suicide pacts and the disappearance/death of her friends) with matter-of-factness. She even does not go into detail about her marriage (encouraged by Hitler) to a soldier who falls in battle. One book review mentions that Junge almost never witnessed Hitler’s emotional outbursts, and in fact towards his staff he was considerate and paternalistic. I saw the movie first, read the book, and then insisted on watching the movie again. I recognize that a secretary’s account of Hitler and the Nazi Party is likely to be blind to many ugly realities, but if anything it dramatized how for incurious people inside the reassuring bubble of Naziism, work and family life seemed perfectly normal … except perhaps for secondhand reports of casualties. Ultimately, the plight of Traudl Junge is more important than that of Hitler; it’s eye opening to read about how ordinary and basically good people become caught up in a totally evil system. Highly recommended. (PS, I read this book in 2 days!) Note: This is available as an ebook for $1.99. Great buy!

  • Best Books about Energy, Environment & Climate Change

    One sign you have become an energy geek is when your bedtime reading tends to be academic tomes about renewable energy. Despite my literary tendencies, I don’t deny that I find these volumes to be engrossing and fascinating; the subject seems to have an urgency missing from the software or publishing world.  I have come across many books  on the subject over the last 2 years (including many free titles available as PDFs).  I haven’t finished reading these titles yet, but all are worth reading. Here’s my current list:

    •  Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era (2011) by Amory Lovins is an excellent in-depth analysis about energy needs, business innovation and policy. It has the depth and research about the subject and covers a wide variety of topics. It has a good holistic view of the subject. The Best Book on the Subject
    • Eaarth by Bill McKibben. (2011) This journalist, advocate and protest leader makes the spiritual and moral  case for fighting climate change policy. McKibben doesn’t claim to be an expert on anything, but his well-researched book indicates a good understanding of the problem – both from a political and ethical point of view.  This book is very easy to read and passionate as well. Recommended for Laypeople.
    • Our Choice by Al Gore. (2009) Gore has always been a divisive figure in climate change politics, but that doesn’t detract from his ability to do his research and explain technical matters well. I use this book often as a reference guide for  the various energy solutions; Gore certainly has mentioned it here.  Reinventing Fire is a much more comprehensive book, but newcomers to the subject may find Al Gore’s overview to be sane and refreshing.
    • Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity by James Hansen. (2010)Hansen was one of the earliest scientists to call attention to climate change; he has done tireless amounts of research on the topic. In this book he delves into detail about how openly the Bush Administration disregarded the pronouncements of climate science. Even I was shocked.
    • Earth: The Operator’s Manual by Richard Alley (2011). In preparation for the PBS Science series, Alley wrote a science book for the general audience.  This was a very thoughtful and generally nonpolitical book which nonetheless lays out the evidence for climate change in a seemingly incontrovertible way.
    • Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air by David JC MacKay.  (2009)When I started reading this book, I immediately grasped its usefulness.  It defines terms about how to measure the effectiveness of various policy measures and how scientists calculate things like energy efficiency. It also explains the scientific principles and formulas for gathering data.  It doesn’t necessarily make policy recommendations, but clarifies how to have an honest debate without getting lost in quantitative analysis and semantics.  The full book is available for online reading and also downloadable as a PDF… for free!
    • Cooler, Smarter: Practical Steps for Low-Carbon Living. (2012)Expert Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists.   This well-researched guide for consumers helps them to make purchasing decisions and to figure out the carbon footprints of their lifestyle. Although the introduction to climate change is necessary, the rest of the book provides valuable information for consumers and environmentalists alike. Recommended for Consumers
    • The Two Mile Time Machine (2001) by Richard Alley gives a first person account of how scientists use ice core samples from glaciers to estimate the carbon levels and temperature levels of previous millenia. This book is over a decade old, but well-beloved by people in the climate change field.
    • Hack the Planet (2010). Eli Kintisch and How to Cool the Planet (2010)  by Jeff Goodell are two books I’m reading by journalists about the important topic of geoengineering. Many climate scientists warn of the dangers of taking affirmative actions to manipulate the environment to combat global warming, but these two books are the first to describe the ethical and practical problems of doing so.  One climate scientists said that we have been already manipulating the environment through greenhouse gases; we might as well get past the ethical concerns about geoengineering because humanity will have no choice to implement these measures.
    • Global Warming and Climate Change Demystified by Jerry Silver. This book reads like a high school textbook, and that is good. It summarizes the results of the IPCC conference and explains the basic science principles behind  climate modeling and measuring change. Unfortunately, even the IPCC data is out of date (on sea level rise for instance). Nonetheless, this is a good place to get a basic foundation in the science. (Recommended for Students).
    • What’s the Worst that Can Happen? by Greg Craven (2009). Craven is a high school science teacher who put up a short series of entertaining climate change lectures on youtube. I picked a used copy of this book and was struck by the clarity of his reasoning and explanations. Interestingly, this book is less a book about climate change than about how to weigh evidence and how to derive policy conclusions from scientific evidence. This readable book addresses on a more basic level why embracing climate change policy is an example of sound and rational thinking. The book is essentially a manual about how to think scientifically.  Recommended for students and conservative skeptics.
    • Solar by Ian McEwan. (2009)  (A novel). I don’t consider this to a masterpiece, but it is the first attempt to describe global warming as a cultural influence. (leaving aside Kim Stanley Robinson’s Science in the Capitol series). Solar is a social satire of environmentalists, professional deniers and how academia cossets both types. By the way, I am writing a sort of comic novel about climate change as well. I didn’t think the novel worked overall, but several of its set pieces were effective and provocative.

    Other Books

    Here are some books that I know somewhat well but which I haven’t read for one reason or another.

    • Air Pollution and Global Warming: History, Science, and Solutions, (2012)” by Mark Z. Jacobson (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2012) is probably the best college textbook on the subject of climate change written by one of the best climate scientists around. (If you don’t believe me, read his Scientific American article or other ones). The book sells for $130 new and 86$ used, but I expect in a year or so that the price of used copies will go down at least 20%. So keep it on your wishlist until then. (The book’s slides are here).
    • Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (2011) by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway. Oreskes and Conways are science historians who found direct connections between the propaganda effort to sell smoking and the effort to sell fossil fuels. Although the book doesn’t try to do media criticism, Oreskes is famous for her study which found no disagreement from the science consensus in journals while significant controversy in articles written for news publications. I’ve seen several of Oreskes’ public lectures on youtube.
    • Straight Up (2010) and Hell and High Water (2009)  by Joe Romm. Romm is an energy policy wonk who used to work for the Dept of Energy under Clinton. His Climateprogress blog is one of the best informed about climate change policy. Romm does not duck controversy and sometimes may seem too argumentative, but he understands better than anybody the various tradeoffs you make with each climate change solution. I haven’t read either book, but I suspect they have culled the best parts from his blog.
    • Hockey Stick and Climate Change by Michael Mann. Mann is a scientist who was thrown into the limelight after publishing an estimate of the relationship between climate change and carbon over the millennium. Practically every major scientific body has validated Mann’s research, but he has been the subject of an unrelenting attack by the right-wing attack machine.  I’m sure it will be an interesting read, but for more Mann’s personal story than for what he says about climate change.

    Other Free Stuff

    I’ve downloaded a ton of free white papers about various climate change issues. Here are some favorites:

    • John Cook at Skeptical Science has published two mini-ebooks (each about 15 pages) about climate change. The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism (PDF)  summarizes the arguments about why humans have caused climate change and why it is a serious problem. It also answers the common charges made against it. This PDF packs an incredible amount of stuff in 15 pages!  The Debunking Handbook is a summary of insights from social psychology about which persuasive techniques have proven to the be the most effective. A fascinating read.
    • Climate Change Impacts is a summary of the potentially disastrous effects that climate change can have on American life.  The federal government commissioned some of its top experts to cover all the major bases, and it is informative and not particularly controversial.
    • National Academy of Science reports. Did you know that you can download practically any NAS report as a PDF? Sure, you have to register for free, but you can get access to first-class analysis for easy reading on your ipad! I haven’t read any of these titles yet (but plan to), but these seem to be the most substantial.  Climate Stabilization Targets (2011)  does a lot of number-crunching about the practicality of meeting targets, America’s Climate Choices (2011) gives a less scientific overview, Understanding Earth’s Deep Past: Lessons for our Climate Future gives a more rigorous overview of the historical climate records.

  • Brief Book Reviews 2

    Here are some abbreviated book reviews. (The brevity neither reflects on the quality but simply on my inclination to write a thorough review at the time). See also: my index of book reviews which I recently started. Please note that at the bottom of this post I’m going to try to mention books which I’m currently reading and plan to review. No promises obviously, but  the To-Read is more for my reference.

    alley-orig Earth: The Operator’s Manual. By Richard Alley.  This book written for the general reader provided the foundation for a PBS series about climate change and earth science. This is not great writing, but the tone is dispassionate and fair-minded and full of useful information. Alley first came to prominence through his work with ice cores and testifying before Congress. He doesn’t have strong political views, but he understands the places where people commonly misunderstand the science and is a good explainer.
    image With One Eye Open by Polly Frost  ($2.99). This  is a  series of sophisticated but hilarious sketches by Polly Frost about popular and Net culture. It’s light and fun reading, poking fun at writers, Facebook, theatre, commercialism, dieting, celebritydom, software to write novels. These are obvious targets of satire, yes,  and the humor is so topical and trendy  that I wonder if it could have been  written 6 months from now. Most  take place under a Manhattan backdrop, with a love/hate relationship towards technology, publishing and the bohemian lifestyle. Among my favorite stories were “Final Paper You Want From Me” (a college girl dreams up new and crazy social networking sites), Reblock Yourself the Polly Frost Way (seminars to teach people to resist the impulse to write) and  My Dog Breeds (an illustrated guide to dog breeds for today — such as the iDog). Frost and her husband Ray Sawhill are the writers behind Sex Scenes, sexy audio stories about Hollywood. P.S., I read almost every piece on the bus while standing up! Recommended.
    image Mind Performance Hacks by Ron Hale-Evans. I bought this 2006 book by accident and have greatly enjoyed it (and used copies are selling for next to nothing on Half.com and Amazon).  The book consists of 75 chapters of about 3-4 pages each. Each chapter contains a hack or technique for creative problem-solving or just mental exercises. Sounds hoaky, but page after page is loaded with insights: how to think analogically, learn an artificial language, ask stupid questions, cultivate the naïve mind, construct memory palaces, hold a question in your mind. In addition to being well-written, it is also well-researched.  Lots of  references to important cognitive psychology and self-help sources , including a reference to my all time favorite  How to Live on 24 Hours a Day by Arnold Bennett.  Even if you are not seriously interested in the subject or the specific techniques being proffered, it is still a great read. Highly recommended.
    image Offshore. by Penelope Fitzgerald  I read this with high hopes (after reading her incredible Blue Flower book about the life of Novalis).  Structurally, this book had lots of short chapters, but the story dragged … lots of talk, not really any development.  I kept waiting for the action to proceed, but the not-so-interesting dialogue became the sole reason for reading. I gave up. (Hard to believe that this won the Booker).
    ctrct_7 Contracts: The Essential Business Desk Reference by Richard Stim.  (Ebook price: $20).  This ebook gives an alphabetized list of contract terms and examples of how they are used and the legal principles behind these terms. The important thing to know is that this is more like a reference or dictionary than a how-to guide. I would have preferred a better organization system to help me understand the relationships between the different terms. This ebook would have been perfect if it provided a hyperlinked & hierarchical outline of related terms in a Part 1 and then provided the alphabetical list in Part 2. Instead, the only way to read this ebook was alphabetically – which is ludicrous.  The explanations and writing for this book were outstanding; too bad  Nolo didn’t have enough insight to provide different paths to look through the digital content.
    image Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein.
    I read 100 pages and was utterly bored, both by the style and action (the premise was somewhat interesting, but far-fetched).  The premise was good, and I could tell the book was headed somewhere, but until that point, the narrative just wasn’t doing a lot.  I have fond memories about some of Heinlein’s earlier books (like Tunnel in the Sky), but this one just didn’t engage me.
    image Arthur & Edith, Mike & Gloria. by Donna McCrohan (print book only) describes the reaction to the show in the 1970s  I wondered whether anyone had ever written about this milestone TV series, and I am happy to report that this book is every bit as revealing and insightful as I had hoped. This book reprints reviews by TV critics and does in-depth analysis of how characters evolved during the show. It also provides a lot of background about how Norman Lear started the show and how his primary aim was entertainment and not really social commentary.  We need more books like this: short, well-researched books about historic TV series which allow readers to appreciate what social forces influenced the show and how the public responded. Highly recommended.
    File:Lost Moon.jpg Lost Moon: Perilous Journey of the Apollo 13. By Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger.  This book (upon which the film Apollo 13 is based) provides a lot more details and background information about the accident. I’m guessing that science journalist Jeffrey Kluger had a major role in shaping the narrative (which was expertly told and whose chapters alternated between flashbacks and current dramas). The book highlights things missed in the movie: the vast amount of flight experience Lovell already had (having flown twice around the moon),  the personal connection Lovell had with ill-fated Apollo 1 tragedy, the social protocol NASA astronauts had (including that of Lovell’s wife, who had to keep one wife “busy” while NASA prepared to deliver the news of her husband’s death), the nitty-gritty detail of the necessary burn operations they had to take,  how the “venting” of oxygen  surrounded the ship during most of the  return home (and interfered with visibility). The book certainly captures the exciting and heroic efforts of the astronauts and crew; strangely, the whole story is told in third person, which papers over the fact that (inside the spaceship at least), the perspective is entirely Lovell’s.  Recommended

     

    Still reading: The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, Cry of the Sloth by Sam Savage, Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air by David J.C. MacKay, Lying: 10 Easy Ways to Spot a Liar, Two Mile Time Machine by Richard Alley, Hack the Planet by Eli Kintisch, Puddenhead Wilson by Mark Twain, Cooler Smarter: Practical Steps for Low-Carbon Living (Union of Concerned Scientists),  various accounting books,  Using Drupal (Oreilly). Reinventing Fire by Amory Lovins, Walking Words by Eduardo Galeano, What Philosophy Can Teach you about your Cat by Stephen Hales, Revised Kama Sutra by Richard Crasta, Last Tragedy by  Herb Mallette,  Every Vote Equal by John R. Caza.

  • Jade: Outlaw By Robert Flynn (Book Review)

    jade-outlawJade: Outlaw by Robert Flynn (2010), JoSara MeDia, 190 pages. Author’s Website and Blog (with RSS feed)

    Ebook: Amazon/BN (now at  99 cents!)

    Print Editions: Used copies are available, but with ebooks so cheap, why bother?

    Summary: A  Western tale about a 19th century Texas town  that is harsh, spiritual and profound.

    Recommended if you like:  Cormac McCarthy (but with more plain-spoken  language), Faulkner,  Euripides,  Graham Greene

    I don’t normally read Westerns, but I’m a fan of this dark and brooding novel. It takes place in a Texas town beset by all kinds of disruptive forces. Civilized living in this late 19th century Texas town  is still tenuous. Towns are small, individuals are vulnerable to attack and robbery and there’s a lot friction between ethnic groups.  The white man is outraged at how Indians attack settlers and steal their belongings. Indians are outraged by the heavy-handed way that the white man encroaches on their territory and retaliates for crimes committed by Indians from other tribes. Caught in the middle are farming families, Mexicans, merchants, drifters, religious people and people with multiple loyalties.

    It’s a rough life that claims many casualties. This novel depicts many of these inhabitants, starting with a tough cowboy haunted by the memory of an Indian raid where he shoots his wife to prevent the Indians from  getting to her first.  He consoles himself that it had to be done — and other white woman agree –but after talking to  Crow Poison,  a white woman who used to be married to an Indian, he has to face the real possibility that the Indians wouldn’t have killed and molested his wife’s body after all. How would he ever know? Was it possible that his murderous deed — though committed with the purest of motives — was ultimately a senseless act of destruction?

    Jade finds steady work as an escort for cattle, guarding property and chasing after rustlers. He does it exceedingly well (and the author does a great job of capturing the mundane details of being a cowboy: the food, the daily aggravations, the techniques for defending oneself). Jade has already killed several Indians who have committed crimes. He rationalizes his behavior by saying he’s pursuing justice; in a way, he’s avenging the violence which the Indians forced him to do against the woman he loved. At the same time, Jade feels queasy about having so much violence in his life. What he feels is not so much guilt as  regret that these violent deeds have become for him a necessity of living in Texas.

    His foil is a white woman named Crow Poison who used to be married to an Indian; tragically, her son and husband were killed during an Indian raid. Jade and Crow Poison are two people with anger in their hearts; they are immediately attracted to one another, and yet they also condemn one another’s values. Jade finds appalling that Crow Poison might have had normal relations with a man whose laws and moral code was so primitive. Crow Poison finds appalling that Jade could dispense with human life so nonchalantly just to make a living. With horror she realizes that a man like Jade — and maybe even Jade himself — could have been the one who killed her husband and son.

    That is the central action of the book. How do both lovers make their peace with the other’s past? Both are loners and strangers in this small community; in a way these two are meant to be together — both are aggrieved enough to challenge the other’s cynical world view.

    I wouldn’t call this a religious or even a spiritual novel, but the novel  raises questions about what role religion can play (if any) in a society  lacking  order and a settled structure of governance. A preacher and his family live among the people to offer guidance and comfort and an upright example. But most of the transients and townspeople scoff at the preacher’s efforts. The preacher has dreams of mending relations between Indians and Americans, but he practically inhabits a war zone. Wouldn’t it be better for the intrepid preacher  to wait for peaceful society to develop before trying to spread the Christian word? For someone to intervene (either morally or physically) on behalf of the downtrodden  is almost an invitation to self-destruction or martyrdom. The preacher preaches forgiveness and respect and charity, but in the open land, such currencies have no real value.

    Weapons have value, and so do whores. So do ethnic kinship and face-to-face meetings and of course money. The general from the ranch house seems to have the most money, but strongmen/teamsters like Jade have the raw power. Still,  people like Jade are not happy; they cannot even relax. Even as a cautious strongman, Jade doesn’t really feel safe; he must be suspicious of everybody.

    Who is Jade really? And who does he want to become?

    This remarkable novel provides a compelling panorama of Texas settlers in the late 19th century. I can’t speak of its historical accuracy, but the book is overflowing with details and slang (the slang is not too intrusive, and there is  a helpful glossary at the end). My main complaint is more formal than thematic. The book throws out so many minor characters and backstory  that I got lost several times (even when skimming through the novel for a second time to write this review). The reader’s first encounter with a character is through dialogue;  gradually it becomes possible to piece together the character’s personality during the novel — but it takes a while. (Flynn did something similar in the somewhat  more light-hearted  Wanderer Springs).

    The advantage of immersing a reader in such a large ensemble is that encounters seem less directed and  more random; we are never quite sure which members in this town community are going to play an important role later.  The first half of the book is about Jade and Crow Poison’s    turbulent love story, but  by the book’s end, an improbable and tragic series of events thrusts several incidental characters into the limelight (I’m being purposely vague here). These events are jarring and heart-rending; they bring insight and require major choices.  There is a lesson to be learned here: every person is important before the eyes of God and God-loving people, no matter how easy to overlook — whether in the novel or real life.

    As I mentioned, my unfamiliarity with characters caused confusion and slowed my reading down (although it was no longer an issue by the last third). The style is sparse, and the language stays simple. But when the narrator is permitted to enter the minds of characters, it reveals  complex sentiments and fears. None of the sentences seem remarkable by itself until you stumble upon one which penetrates to the heart of the matter — not in judgment, but understanding. Here’s a scene where Crow Poison compares Jade to her deceased Indian husband Skull Cap:

    Why had he /Jade/ come back? Crow Poison pondered. She no longer believed that he had come to the settlement to kill her,  but what did he want with her? He had sat easy at her table and he walked like Skull Cap, as though walking was for squaws. Warriors were above all living things on the earth. Even the mighty eagle could be put under their foot with an arrow or a rifle. The horse was their glory, the proof of their manhood, their first and greatest coup. The horse was the weapon that made them deadly and the shield that made them invulnerable to lesser foes.

    They seemed much the same, Jade and her husband, but separated by rivers of tears, mountains of dead, cliffs of hatred so sheer and deep no one could have imagined the bottom.

    She had clung to Skull Cap knowing that she was not likely to have him for long. Horses, buffalo, braves, soldiers — all were proud, all were vain, all were doomed. The horses would survive the longest, beyond their usefulness because of their beauty, their grace. Because they could make a man bigger than he had ever been. Like the locomotive she had seen once. More powerful than a man, yet controlled by a man.

    Crow Poison wondered if white men would someday turn against the machine the way they had the buffalo despite all the gifts the buffalo had given man. The buffalo had made survival possible. Yet white man had killed them as happily, as wantonly as she had killed scorpions, centipedes, the snakes that carried death in their mouths..

    This passage captures both the romanticized way that men in 19th century treated women and horses, and Crow Poison’s fatalistic attitude that they never will change. At the same time, Crow Poison does not really resist Jade’s romantic advances… if only because the two of them share a kinship based on tragedy. And the two of them are able to help the other to grow; neither are able to preach forgiveness, but at least each comes to realize that the other person is not the real enemy here.

    Why should people be reading this kind of novel today? Surely society today is nowhere as dangerous as Jade’s world. The novel asks important questions. How do you enforce a moral code? How can people learn to suppress the thirst for vengeance when pursuing justice? What  kinds of actions can we forgive in a loved one? How do peacemakers bridge the barriers between groups of people who deny the other’s humanity?

    The end hints at a sequel, and indeed, Flynn wrote one called Jade: The Law. Although Jade: Outlaw  stands well enough  on its own, I like knowing that this novel was  only the first leg of  a longer  journey.  I’m hoping that the second novel will offer less violence and more time to  focus on the ordinary (and less stressful) part of people’s lives.    Jade:  Outlaw  has a few  lighter moments, but for the most part it depicts humans in a precarious state who are beset  by anxiety and sadness.   Great writing, yes, but when (and how) will the  inhabitants find peace and contentment?

    Or will they?

    See Also:  My blogpost about Robert Flynn’s web essays (with lots of links).

    This disclaimer about reviewing books.

    (View my other book reviews).

  • Complete Works and Other Stories by Augusto Monterroso (Book Review)

    complete-works-monteroso-original-1

    Complete Works and Other Stories by Augusto Monterroso (1995), UT Press (Austin). Translated from Spanish by Edith Grossman, 150 pages.

    Print Editions: Used copies are available for about $10

    Book Page at UT Press site , Amazon.com page, Complete Review page , Author Wikipedia page ; Another review.

    Summary: A great and hilarious sketchbook with smaller literary forms, but I wish that story subjects were treated more thoroughly.

    Recommended if you like:  Borges,  Yourgrau, Calvino,  Kundera

    Monterroso’s Complete Works and Other Stories contain two volumes of stories in  a single book. The stories are compressed, satirical and chiefly about bookish subjects. In some stories the style is frenetic and a series of jarring images and exclamations. Many of the stories seem essayistic; the second volume Perpetual Motion contains a series of short themes — some of which are not fictional at all. Most of the narratives are self-conscious; in the penultimate story Brevity the narrator says,

    The truth is that the writer of short pieces wants nothing more in this world than to write long texts, interminably long texts in which the imagination does not have to work, in which facts, things, animals and men meet, seek each other out, exist, live together, love, or shed their blood freely without being subjected to the semicolon or the period." (From “Brevity”)

    The final story "Errata and Final Notice" points out alleged errors earlier in the book, adding that the book ends on page 152, this "does not mean it could not also begin here in a backward motion as useless and irrational as the one undertaken by the reader to reach this point."

    Clever stuff. My favorite story Leopoldo (His labors) describes a man who considers himself a writer and is regarded as one by friends and family, and yet does little of what may be called writing. Instead, he cogitates at great length about writing, goes through several drafts and spends months agonizing about whether a porcupine or dog should win in a fight in one of his stories.   Other story themes include: the vagaries of literary reputation and publishing world, the vanities of the artist  and the art appreciator, The title story Complete Works is about a timid critic who longingly hangs around other more distinguished critics until he discovers a narrow field of literary specialization which suffices to gain him entrance into the club.

    Other stories cover general themes with characters to illustrate the points: the tallest man in the world, the wife of a ruler who likes to put on charity events involving poetry, a man who deals in shrunken heads, a jealous man. But most of the chapters are either simple little allegories or one paragraph observations about life and art. The book totals 150 pages, and yet it took a long time  for me to read. Almost all the pieces were delightful: short and elegantly told (and rendered by Edith Grossman). Yet I wonder if nonartists would find these pieces as enjoyable as I did.  One of the more successful pieces, Solemnity and Eccentricity, reads more like an essay than a story;  a group of artists proclaim a war against solemnity, and Monterroso reflects on the futility of such a campaign:

    those who were not solemn (I hastened to place myself among those) laughed more than ever, wherever they were, pointing the finger at things and people.Those who thought themselves solemn declared with a forced smile that they were not, or at least were only when there was no need to be.

    The rest of the piece reflects on solemnity, false solemnity and ultimately eccentricity, cataloguing historical accounts of eccentrics  over the the centuries.

    Monterroso’s previous collection Black Sheep (which I have not read) tells simple fable-like tales about animals, and this book also displays the author’s talent in working within miniature forms.  Complete Works has many elements found in shorter fiction:  the fairy tale realism of Buzatti, the elegant impudence of Baudelaire, the promiscuous surrealism of Yourgrau, the absurdist obscurantism of Kafka and  the otherworldly pedanticism of Borges. At the same time, Monterroso’s pieces have a friendly conversational tone; they are  more down-to-earth,  lush with symbolism but not allegorical, more designed to enthrall with wit than to engage the imagination, more geared to social commentary than suggesting an aesthetic. Most of the pieces seem borderline  ridiculous –  but never implausible.

    Microfiction can be hard to read, even for a remarkable  book like this.  As much as I enjoy the book’s  paradoxes and aphorisms, at the end, I found myself longing for longer pieces and a sustained perspective  at characters. This is not an impossible feat.  Kundera organized various essays and mini-episodes into sections  to simulate the effect of a novel’s spaciousness.    In Blue Flower, Penelope Fitzgerald assembled  a series of short  imaginary incidents from the  the  life of a German writer poet  and produced a coherent narrative direction — even though every chapter was 1-3 pages long. I know: Different author, different ambitions, different styles. Monterroso’s extraordinary fiction is what it is, but for me they never rise above being impish sketches.  For the Perpetual Motion collection of stories (in the 2nd half of the book), "flies" are the  unifying motif –  but this association via literary quotes at the top of each story  didn’t help me or even make much sense. Out of all the characters, only one – Leopoldo the writer – stood out in my memory.  I can’t help wondering if such a memorable character could be enhanced with additional chapters.   This brilliant story provided an initial condition without necessarily adding a complication or a potential for change. Let me ask: would Don Quixote be  better if  it were only one chapter?

  • Brief Book Reviews 1

    Here are some abbreviated book reviews. (The brevity neither reflects on the quality but simply on my inclination to write a thorough review at the time). See also: my index of book reviews which I recently started.

    cover-dog-small What Philosophy Can Tell You about Your Dog. By Steven D. Hales. A fun and erudite anthology of essays about pets by philosophy teachers. The essays vary in quality, but all are provocative and raise philosophical issues about animals. I’m guessing it was used for class readings in a philosophy class, but intellectually-minded pet owners would find it an enjoyable read as well. Note that there is a “sequel”  What Philosophy Can Tell You about Your Cat. which probably are just essays on additional related topics.  Note: I plan to write an essay titled, “Can dogs appreciate Beethoven?”
    cover-hair There’s a Hair in My Dirt by Gary Larson. Mischievous and macabre children’s book told by a father worm to his family. The beautifully illustrated images are hilarious, and the story elegantly debunks a prettified view of nature. My 7 year old nephew loved the book, and so did an 11 year old niece who understand what the book was really about. As an adult I could enjoy it on many levels as well.
    cover-99ways-reduced 99 Ways to Tell a Story by Matt Madden depicts how the same short scene could be told using comic book form in 99 different ways. A creative exercise, and it really gets you thinking about the different ways comic book artists convey narrative. Scott McCloud would approve.
    cover-nasty-book-resized Nasty  Book  by Barry Yourgrau contains more surreal short stories which are geared for younger (male) readers with a definite Charles Addams humor.  I raved about another Yourgrau collection, Man Jumps Out of an Airplane which were stylistically elegant and compressed and intended for adult readers. Nasty Book (and its sequel Nasty Book 2) have that same unexpected surreal humor, but with more conventional stock characters (delivering pizzas to vampires, etc) and conventional narrative. I don’t fault Yourgrau for trying to tone down the compression of his prose pieces; he instinctively knows the psyche of the impatient 12 year old reader.
    image The Frugal Book Promoter by Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the revised 2nd edition of her book about promotion. I’m only midway through, but the book is comprehensive in suggesting lots of ways to promote your book (and by book, I think she means “literary work”). Those in  publishing world know her as the “woman who runs that weekly  book promotion mailing list” (which I highly recommend).  I suspect that Ms. Howard-Johnson hasn’t really covered how to promote ebooks too thoroughly (wait for the next edition!), and some  the specific tips could easily expire or be no longer valid in this fast-moving market,  but there are so many tips here that it’s still worth reading and savoring. BTW, one of her novels has been on my To Read list forever.
    cover-big-book Big Book of Hell by Matt Groening gathers some large panel comic strips he did in the 1980s (i.e., before Groening became an institution). Occasionally the humor is off, but the juvenile minimalist jokes provide lots of premonitions of later works such as the Simpsons.
    image Small Key Opens Big Doors (50 Years of Amazing Peace Corps Stories) is an amazing read for the Peace Corps volunteer or just the international reader. By the way, my essay The Art of Losing Things appears in it.
    cover-best-books John T. Gillespie edits a series of  indispensable book guides for librarians and parents.  Each volume is about 1000 pages and consists of an annotated list of books for that age group divided into about 50 different categories (Biological sciences, Plays, Fiction: Contemporary Lives and Problems).  Each annotation is only a sentence or two, and unfortunately he limits the selections to those which seem to be in print, but still this is a useful guide for students and adults.  The most recent edition of each volume costs about 60+ dollars, but the previous edition sells for 2 dollars or less –- and has most of the same content! Content for each volume overlaps, and many of the titles sound similar (though they may specify an age range or grade level).  This reference guide is a great starting point for exploring rare and out-of-print books on Amazon and Half.com My only regret is that the book doesn’t list award winners or attempt to single out notable works in each genre.  I would have loved to see a hand-picked collection of fave titles; that would be a read! (Allison Lurie comes close with her literary criticism about children’s lit: see Don’t Tell the Grown Ups, and Boys and Girls Forever: Children’s Classics from Cinderella to Harry Potter).
    adventures Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman is a fat book detailing lots of practical experiences working for Hollywood in the 1980s. Please appreciate the fact that the practical tips are mostly obsolete. The book  is useful mainly for entertainment value (it’s hilarious) and detailing the everchanging relationship between director and actor and writer.  This book is hailed as a classic by screenwriters (and perhaps it is), but it’s less useful than illustrative of the various quandaries which writers find themselves in.
    image Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python by Al Sweigart is a creative commons guide to programming which is intended for the younger reader. This highly readable book explains things well, gives good learning examples and helps the reader develop several games ranging from easy to hard. After about page 300, the author introduces you to Pygame, which by then seems like a breeze.  You can read the entire book for free online or download the free PDF.

  • Highly Recommended Fiction Books

    This list compiles my favorite literary titles I’ve read since 2005.   This repeats my capsule review/synopses that I write for my Reading/Writing chronologies (see link at top). I’ll update this list over time, with my most recent recommendations appearing at the bottom. See also my list of favorite novels and a list of writers who have influenced me. In 2011, I started writing book reviews on a regular basis … albeit slowly (here’s a list).

    Restless Nights by Dino Buzzati. Italian allegorical writer. Light-hearted brief tales with deeper darker overtones. Update: This book is not only the best thing I’ve read all year, but the best thing I’ve read in 5 years. Good luck finding this rare and amazing book. See also his other collection: The Siren and other Stories

    13 Ways of Looking at the Novel by Jane Smiley. Great explanation of why the novel genre is relevant in the 21st century. Jane Smiley writes not with scholarly rigor but an artisan’s practical eye. Nonetheless, she indicates a historical awareness of what her predecessors have done with the novel and what the novel is capable of. Her short essays about 100 novels are nothing special (though they are interesting to browse through).

    Fat City by Leonard Gartner. Classic hard-boiled California novel about down-and-out-boxers. Recommended by Neil Pollack and ultimately Denis Johnson–see this article) . Stylistically speaking, the taut sentences remind me of either Raymond Chandler and Raymond Carver. But stories about boxers–ugh! Can’t someone declare a moratorium? Update: Although the ending left me hanging, the writing was sad, compelling and taut. Each paragraph was a work of art, and I like how the book transcends the idiotic genre of boxing. It is about love, failed relationships and disappointed dreams. Favorite scenes: picking the onions, Billy Tully’s return to his ex-wife (how heart-breaking). As I finish, I just don’t know what to make of it, except to appreciate where it took me, what I saw.

    Tales from Ovid, tr. by Ted Hughes. Compelling rendering of the Metamorphasis by a great poet. Unfortunately incomplete translation, these poems bring ancient legends to life. Update: An extraordinary retelling that has whetted my appetite for Ovid.

    Other Hand Clapping by Marco Vassi. Spiritual/erotic journey by erotic writer Marco Vassi. Taut masterpiece about meditation, introspection and jealousy. Compare to Moravia’s Contempt. (I’m writing a critical essay about Vassi, so I’m reading a lot by him at the moment).

    Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling, by Chris Crawford. Videogame designer Chris Crawford imagines an immersive videogame for telling stories and speculates how it might be constructed (from a programming point of view). A fascinating work; he’s clearly thought about this subject for a while. I have no doubt that some 15 year old somewhere will pick up this book and write a literary/gaming engine incorporating Crawford’s algorithms that will transform the world.

    I’m the Teacher, You’re the Student by Patrick Allitt. Fun personal account by a distinguished history professor about teaching a one semester class. Loaded with insights, anecdotes and suggestions. Things I found intriguing: his total disregard for personal problems of students when accepting excuses (students need to be responsible for their actions, he says), his analysis of why student papers are so poorly constructed (there are many reasons, but it has a lot to do with writing not for a general audience but for the teacher ), why plagiarism is harmful (it prevents the teacher from seeing into the students’ mind). What struck me was how keenly Allitt perceived gaps in understanding and how much material they could digest for a semester class.

    America by Alistaire Cooke. Famed Brit writes an engrossing panoramic history lesson for the general reader. Cooke has a jaunty first person style and an eye for unusual details. I listened to his Letter from America for years and was afraid his writing on the page would pale by comparison. Happily, I report this not to be the case.

    How to Live on 24 hours a day. Arnold Bennett. Short essay about maximizing the use of your time. Absolutely relevant to this day and age. http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext00/24hrs11.txt

    Red China Blues, by Jan Wong. Amazing 1st person account of a Canadian-Chinese who studied in China during the Cultural Revolution and who revisited China over the decades. Wong is a great writer and dramatically shows how living in China both brainwashed her and made her skeptical about politics. Here’s an interview with her about Tiananmen Square for a pbs documentary http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tankman/interviews/wong.html

    Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald. Remarkable and romantic novel that is philosophical, whimsical, light-hearted, humorous and yes, joyful. Compare to Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being.

    The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film, by Michael Ondaatje. Extended thoughts by Murch on various film projects. Great anecdote about how he reedited Welles’ Touch of Evil to conform with Welles’ original instructions. Update: This book just gets better and better. I’m now calling it one of the most important essays on art and creativity I’ve found. See also: In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch.

    An Old Wives’ Tale by Arnold Bennett (free, on my ereader). This long book, raved about by Martin-Seymour Smith, is easy to get into and seems to be more of a character study than a plotted novel. (I just started). It’s a bit slow going, although I appreciate Bennett’s fascination with ordinary people and ordinary lives. This is a long book, so I’ll be staying with it a while. Update: This is now one of my alltime favorite books.

    A Rebellious Heroine, John Kendrick Bangs. Free download, metafictional comedy. Looks cerebral and light-hearted. And funny. (Upon finishing) I am feeling very positive about what’s going on ontologically here, although the conceit is somewhat cute.

    Six Records of a Floating Life (Penguin Classics)by Shen Fu. Short novella/autobiography about an official and his wife. Besides giving an excellent glimpse into aspects of Chinese culture (flower arrangement, filial piety and mythologies), this story is fascinating and lovely to read. At times the story is sad, but you appreciate the ability to go into the world of 18th century China.

    Lucian, Satires. A series of Voltairian parodies and sketches. Hilarious.

    Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov. Terrific.

    Laughing Sutra by Mark Salzman (highly recommended). Update: This book turned out to be the most enjoyable thing I’ve read this year. A picaresque tale of a young Chinese monk wishing to travel to the US to locate some mythical Buddhist scripture. I laughed and laughed some more.  I didn’t realize this until after reading, but the book is an homage to Journey to the West.

    Three Comrades, by Eric Remarque.  Tale of three buddies (who fought together in WW1) mess around, sell cars (in 1936!), deal with growing old, go on dates. It’s easy to forget in Germany between WW2 that normal living went on. See my essay about the book.  Highly recommended.

    How Proust Can Change Your Life: Not a Novel by Alain De Botton. Idiosyncratic light-hearted biography of Proust’s life. Best read of the year.

    The Curtain by Milan Kundera. Outstanding collection of meditations about the novel and its place in history. I loved every page! Highly recommended.

    Travels with Lisbeth. by Lars Eighner. Classic tale about being homeless in Texas. I’m enjoying this work a lot, but there’s really nothing typical about his homeless story.  One conceit of the memoir is why such an eloquent person would be roaming the streets, but if you forget about that for a moment, you can appreciate Lars Eighner’s insights into life from the point of view of a down-and-outer. Highly recommended.

    Contempt by Alberto Moravia. Second time reading.  This is one of the most psychologically absorbing novel I’ve ever read. It is sad and tragic,  though Moravia has all sorts of insights into relationships and the human heart. It’s funny; I’ve read some other mediocre stuff by Moravia and didn’t expect much here. Oddly, I wasn’t particular enamored by the film when I first saw it (before reading the book). Now that I’ve read the book, I’m tempted to watch it again for curiosity’s sake.  Highly recommended.

    Writing in the Dark. Essays by David Grossman. This Israeli writer writes about morality and art with the seriousness of a Camus and the introspection of Proust. Highly recommended.

    Eureka Street by Robert McLaim Wilson. Really terrific social novel about living in Belfast during the political turbulence of the 1990s. In many ways this is a perfect novel. Lots of subplots and reprises and characters.  I’ll be honest; I haven’t been really  interested in the internecine squabblings of  Belfast, but this book made me care about it.  This is a rough bawdy novel with lots of skirmishes, outbursts, silliness and even introspection. Someone compared it to Bonfire of the Vanities or the Corrections; never having read that, I don’t know how apt this comparison is, but I enjoyed being surprised by new characters and situations. The central character is a  boorish fellow who is utterly sick of the political nonsense swirling about him; in a way he just lets everything slide over him without caring.  By the end, we learn that he has turned into an assertive and active character has started to care  (and so do we the readers)    Highly recommended.

    Great Voyeur: observations on my sexual history. By MC Radiance. Comic tell-all about a young man’s sexual history. Free & Creative Commmons. This book is both funny and light-hearted and a delight to read (so far). The mulitalented MC Radiance has published a number of fast-paced, imaginative and sexually explicit books on Feedbooks. A critic compared him to Tom Robbins; I would add Garcia Marquez, Salmon Rushie and Terry Southern. I haven’t read enough to know if there is any depth or great themes, but so far it reads very well.

    Fiction of Jack Matthews. I’ve been reading a lot of Jack Matthews, and the works are uniformly excellent (and my ebook publishing company is publishing some of his titles).  Among my faves: Sassafras. Comic epic tale about a phrenologist in 19th century America. This comic & philosophical tale is like the American Candide.  Gambler’s Nephew, A highly readable and historically accurate  story about how  an accidental killing of a slave in 19th century USA affects various families and communities.  A old-fashioned yarn told with cunning and irony.  Hanger Stout, Awake, tale of a happy-go-lucky high school student who finds himself the victim of a con job. Crazy Women. Short story collection where a different kind of crazy woman (to use the term loosely) appears in each story.  (All the short stories are great though). Booking in the Heartland, wonderful essays about the art of book collecting, plus some investigations into some “found books” with delicious histories.  See this interview I did with Matthews.

    Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley.

    Zombification: Stories from National Public Radio by Andrei Codrescu. Highly recommended.

    Man Jumps out of an Airplane. Stories by Barry Yourgran. Highly recommended. My Review.

  • A Man Jumps Out of an Airplane: By Barry Yourgrau (Book Review)

    imageA Man Jumps Out of an Airplane by Barry Yourgrau (1999)

    Print Editions:  Used copies are available for less than $5.

    Ebook Editions: Amazon, BN (less than $4)

    Arcade Publishing,   Author Website.

    Summary:  Spellbinding flash fiction which is silly/fantastic/profound – take your pick.

    Rating: 5 Stars.

    Recommended if you like:  Baudelaire’s Paris Spleen, David Byrne,  Erotica Flash  Fiction,  Rene Magritte art

    This collection of short prose pieces (each about a page long) depict seemingly ordinary situations where fantastically absurd things happen.  They seem less like   like stories than  cosmic jokes or  Zen fairy tales for Americans. Each prose piece offers surprises and revelations. (“A man comes home and finds his wife in bed with a squirrel”, “A couple of girls are locked up in a big aquarium,” “I have the last pack of cigarettes in the world; but no matches.”) The characters themselves are less interesting than their situations; one page is enough for them to  fall in love or meet imaginary creatures or feel some grand feeling. A lot of the prose pieces are sexually explicit but strange (in one a man finds a map of Greenland on the inside of a girl’s thigh). The prose style is compact  and exquisite and  easy to read  (and suitable for being performed publicly).   Now that I’m finished,   almost none of the pieces have stuck in my head; all I retain is the memory of being dazzled by a rapid series of  unreal  images and events.  On the bright side, I probably could reread these pieces and enjoy them just as much as the first time.

    What is the aim of these koan-like stories? Should the reader notice the allegorical resonances or  simply enjoy Yourgrau’s marvelous and whimsical sense of the absurd?   With Kafka or Buzzati, the initial situation may have been absurd (i.e., turning into a cockroach), but  the author spent considerable effort expanding on the idea and giving it an air of plausibility.  But Yourgrau’s stories are more playful than plausible.   I am unsure whether to call this a profound literary work — you can’t have real character development or serious drama in a form so compact and whimsical.  These kinds of stories don’t NEED to be profound — especially when the far-fetched imagery is so metaphorical.  In the Soupbone story, the protagonist jumps out of  an airplane while emptying a shoebox of letters from his old love; to his surprise he finds a falling dog also in midair helplessly trying to chase after a bone.  Why a dog? Why a soupbone? Part of the fun of these stories is trying to relate the imagery  to some universal feeling of dismay or anomie – if that is even possible.   The stories grab and intrigue me, but they don’t really move me; that is not the point.  Yourgrau  has written sequels to this collection using this same innovative short form: Sadness of Sex (about sex) and the NastyBook (geared towards younger readers).   This form breaks   all rules and takes advantage of today’s reader’s short attention span and the magical possibilities of prose. Highly recommended.

  • Gambler’s Nephew by Jack Matthews (Book Review)

    imagePrint Editions: $12.44 ( as of Sept 6/2011) Amazon;  Barnes & Noble ; Print Version Available (240 pages). Ebook: None.

    Estruscan Books, 2011  Author Website.

    Summary: A highly readable and historically accurate  story about how  an accidental killing of a slave in 19th century USA affects various families and communities.  A old-fashioned yarn told with cunning and irony.

    Rating: 5 Stars.

    Recommended if you like:  Mark Twain,  books about  pre-Civil War and the South, novels that depict a panorama of characters (a la Dickens),   John Gardner’s Grendel, William Kennedy, Saul Bellow

    I am a fan of this taut and brooding  novel about 19th century America.  It centers around the accidental killing of a slave by an abolitionist while trying to save him and a murder  that occurs as a consequence. Matthews has tackled historical subjects before. His story collection Tales of an Ohio Land dramatizes historical events while his earlier novel, Sassafras, depicts a phrenologist who travels along the wild frontier in the 19th century. Unlike the allegorical and satirical Sassafras, Gambler tackles more social and ethical issues, depicting 19th century morality in ways that would make the modern reader squeamish. Matthews doesn’t  pass judgment on beliefs and superstitions which might seem repugnant to the the modern reader. Instead Gambler’s Nephew  shows how people lived with such beliefs while still professing  themselves to be religious and upstanding.  Reading this book,  one can’t help wondering  what aspects of our behavior will seem barbaric to future  generations.

    I’ve always enjoyed the short fiction of Jack Matthews, and I’m happy to report that this novel is  profound without  being ponderous.  It’s also a  fast read.  Even though the action turns around the abolitionist and his brother, neither has much  actual “stage time.”  Instead the novel is populated with  servants, jailers,  steamboat captains and slaves.  The last third of the novel centers around the journals  of Lysander Crenshaw, the  “upright” slave owner whose slave was accidentally killed by Dawes.  This part is slower and more deliberative (a contrast to the rapid pace of Books One and Two).   The key thing, I think, is recognizing the parallels between Nehemiah the abolitionist and the slave owner; both were guided by moral impulses and both were troubled by the guilt of their decisions.

    Here  are three things I  like about this novel. First, a lot of characters are rounded out and treated with sympathy and dignity.   There are no villains here: only wounded or misguided people. Second, despite the book’s tragic dimension, there is also a lot of humor: in the dialogue,  in the casual observations, in the character descriptions. (I particularly recommend the prison scene where a condemned prisoner named Biddle  attempts to bribe his jailer for some alcohol — a scene which is both horrifying and hilarious).   Each chapter expands  the story by introducing a new character;  at the end,  the reader has traveled all the way back to the slave owner’s plantation during the slave’s escape  …  and stumbled upon  surprises along the way. Finally, the book is littered with quips and diction and  one liners which enliven every page.  Example: “Two month old puppies chase their own tails; we don’t have tails to chase, so we chase  imponderable questions.”

    See Also: This disclaimer about reviewing books.